Throughout the 1980s, Shohei Imamura (The Pornographers, Profound Desires of the Gods), a leading figure of the Japanese New Wave era of the 1960s, cemented his international reputation as one of the most important directors of his generation with a series of films that all competed at Cannes to great critical acclaim.
Making its HD debut, Zegen (1987) takes a satirical look at Japan's prewar colonial expansion through the unscrupulous eyes of its flesh-peddler antihero as he establishes a prostitution enterprise across Southeast Asia.
This work epitomises the director's almost documentary style of filmmaking, exposing the vulgar yet vibrant and instinctive underbelly of Japanese society through a sympathetic focus on peasants, prostitutes, criminal lowlife and other marginalised figures to explore the schism between the country's timeless premodern traditions and the modern face it projects to the world.
In 1964, Henri-Georges Clouzot, the acclaimed director of thriller masterpieces Les Diaboliques and The Wages of Fear, began work on his most ambitious film yet. Set in a beautiful lake side resort in the Auvergne region of France, L'Enfer (Inferno) was to be a sun scorched elucidation on the dar...
The history of one of France's most famous streets is retold in 'Let's Go Up the Champs-Élysées', featuring multiple performances from Guitry himself.
Let's Make a Dream...' is another story of mistrust, between husband, wife and their lovers.
